Ascended Heroes Chase Cards: The Top 10 From the Biggest English Set Ever
Ascended Heroes is the biggest English Pokémon set ever made, and the card at the top of it is a Pikachu leaning on a tree, looking like it has just heard a noise. It is worth nearly a thousand dollars, and there is another Pikachu ex in the same set worth a third of that.
The set came out on January 30, 2026, the first special set of the Mega Evolution era. Special sets skip booster boxes and are sold only in boxed products like Elite Trainer Boxes, tins and collections. This one is enormous: 295 cards, beating Fusion Strike's old record of 284. The main set is 217 cards, and the other 78 are secret rares numbered past it, which is why every card below has a number bigger than 217. Mega Dragonite was the headline, the starter Pokémon from Pokémon Legends: Z-A got Mega Evolutions (the temporary power-up forms this whole era is named after), and famous trainers turned up with their own Pokémon, from N's Zoroark to Team Rocket's Mewtwo.
The packs were the hard part. The boxed products arrived in waves from late January to late April, the Pokémon Center cancelled a batch of preorders, and in April a crowd in London kicked in the security shutters of a shop on Oxford Street to get at a restock, which sold out in about twenty minutes. The reviews, meanwhile, were ecstatic. Wargamer's 9/10 review called it "one of my favorite sets of all time", and DualShockers went with "probably the best set since Evolving Skies". The chase cards mostly peaked between April and June, and most have given back somewhere between 30 and 50 percent since.
Eight of the ten cards below are Special Illustration Rares, where the painting runs right to the edges of the card. The other two are solid gold Mega Hyper Rares. TCGplayer counted the hits in more than 2,000 packs and found a Special Illustration Rare about every 70 packs. A gold card of either kind turned up about once every 540, though so few appeared that the second number is a rough guess.
A note on the numbers. The prices in the boxes below are live and move with the market; the ones in the writing are accurate as of publication, September 24, 2026. Everything is raw and near mint unless it says otherwise.
Everything that missed the cut is on the Ascended Heroes card list, with today's prices.
The ten most valuable, in reverse order.
#10 Mega Feraligatr ex 274/217 (Special Illustration Rare)
Illustrated by Souichirou Gunjima
Mega Feraligatr has a hood problem.
In the games, Mega Feraligatr grows a huge red hood shaped like a Totodile's head, which mostly sits flipped open behind it. Kotaku compared it to a toilet lid, and plenty of fans redrew it with the hood simply shut. Souichirou Gunjima's card does exactly that: the red hood is clamped down over Feraligatr's head like a mask, and the whole thing finally looks like it means it. Feraligatr roars with its claws spread, water crashing up behind it, framed by orange and teal bursts.
It is $112.61, the lowest price we have recorded for it.
#9 Lillie's Clefairy ex 280/217 (Special Illustration Rare)
Illustrated by Naoki Saito
Everybody on this card is having a lovely day.
Naoki Saito, who drew Lillie once before on a 2018 Ultra Prism card that still sells for hundreds, drew her here in her ponytail and backpack, throwing both arms around a delighted Clefairy with its eyes squeezed shut. Behind them is blue sky, the sea, a meadow full of flowers and pink petals blowing past. Lillie has had a busy year: she is also the face of Lillie's Determination, the tournament favourite in our Mega Evolution chase cards countdown.
It is $142.73. N's Zoroark, next up, costs $3.47 more.
#8 N's Zoroark ex 286/217 (Special Illustration Rare)
Illustrated by Raita Kazama
N and Zoroark already shared a Special Illustration Rare in Journey Together. This one has a great deal more going on.
N, the strange, gentle antagonist of Pokémon Black and White, leans back grinning while his crimson Zoroark coils over him, claws out. The background is dense with pattern: a circular mandala, ornate tiling, blue floral linework and a patch of starfield behind Zoroark. The little puzzle cube that hangs at N's hip in the games is there too, for the fans who check. Raita Kazama drew it. Kazama's first ever card was the Mega Gardevoir on our Mega Evolution list, and that one was just as crowded, so this is clearly a policy.
It is $146.20.
#7 Mega Dragonite ex 295/217 (Mega Hyper Rare)
Illustrated by aky CG Works
The cheaper of the two gold cards.
Mega Hyper Rares are the rarest cards of this era. The whole face is engraved in gold like a banknote, and the picture is drawn specially for it rather than borrowed from a cheaper card. There are two in this set, and aky CG Works drew both. Mega Dragonite faces you with a big smile, its long head-wings hanging down either side of its face like a judge's wig, in front of a circular emblem.
It has slid all year: about $346 in early March, $217.33 now.
#6 Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex 281/217 (Special Illustration Rare)
Illustrated by Mitsuhiro Arita
This is a sequel. Mitsuhiro Arita drew the very first Rocket's Mewtwo ex back in 2004, and twenty-two years later got to draw the follow-up.
This time the boss is in the picture. Giovanni stands on a tiled floor in a pool of red light, like a man who chose his own lighting, hands behind his back and a red Team Rocket badge on his lapel, while an enormous pale Mewtwo curls over him out of a violet storm. Giovanni looks strangely smooth and sculpted, almost like a 3D model, which fits: Arita has talked about using 3D software to plan light and perspective. Mewtwo looks stern. Giovanni looks like he owns the building, and being Giovanni, he probably does.
It is $277.58, down from about $518 in early May.
#5 Pikachu ex 277/217 (Special Illustration Rare)
Illustrated by James Turner
The other Pikachu, and the question the hobby has been asking since spring.
James Turner drew it. Turner was the first Westerner ever to design a Pokémon, and in August became creative director of Pokémon art and design at The Pokémon Company International. This Pikachu is all chunky outlines and good cheer, leaping across a pink background. It is a Tera Pikachu, the crystal power-up form from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, so it gets the full gemstone treatment: a body of pastel stained-glass panels, a spiky white crown ringed with coloured diamonds, and an arch of faceted gems above its head, most of them stamped with a type symbol.
So why is it worth a third of the Pikachu at number one? Here is the best guess going. The text on this card is identical to a Pikachu ex that already had big chase versions in Surging Sparks and Prismatic Evolutions, and this is the fourth Special Illustration Rare or gold version of that one card in about fifteen months. The Pikachu at number one is the first painted, edge-to-edge version of its card, which until now only existed as an ordinary promo from a learn-to-play box. Grading does not explain the gap either: the Pikachu at number one actually comes back a PSA 10 slightly more often.
At $311.40, it is the lowest it has been since we started tracking it in March.
#4 Mega Charizard Y ex 294/217 (Mega Hyper Rare)
Illustrated by aky CG Works
A gold Charizard was never going to finish outside the top five.
aky CG Works drew Mega Charizard Y with its wings spread as wide as the card will allow, head up, backed by a disc with spokes fanning out from it, the whole thing etched in gold.
In the first week of February it was the second most valuable card in the set, around $674 on TCGplayer. It touched $675 again in May and has fallen steadily since, to $340.00 today. Raw, it is a long way behind the painted cards above it. Graded, it is a different story, and that story is below.
#3 Mega Dragonite ex 290/217 (Special Illustration Rare)
Illustrated by DOM
Mega Dragonite was the face of the set, so of course it brought the family.
DOM drew Mega Dragonite beaming out of a sky of candyfloss pink and baby blue, dusted with stars, huge cream head-wings framing the top of the card. Around it: a pale blue Dratini on the left, a Dragonair on the right, and a regular Dragonite washed in pink at the bottom left. Look for the glowing pearl by its tail. Pokémon's own Legends: Z-A page says Mega Dragonite borrowed it from Dragonair, along with the head-wings it uses as feelers, so the middle child is on this card twice.
It peaked at about $880 in June and is $548.64 now.
#2 Mega Gengar ex 284/217 (Special Illustration Rare)
Illustrated by danciao
Gengar got there first.
danciao painted Mega Gengar in thick, heavily textured strokes, mouth stretched right across its face, red eyes slitted, a yellow third eye wide open in the middle of its forehead. Its lower body is sinking into a dark pool of shadow and its huge spiked hands rise up on either side of it. Behind it the sky swirls red, magenta and orange, and sickly green-yellow wisps curl along the bottom. Mega Gengar's third eye is said to see into other dimensions, and on this card you believe it.
When Ascended Heroes launched, this was the most valuable card in the set, around $874 in the first week of February. It touched about $1,400 in May, a copy graded BGS Black Label 10 by Beckett, a PSA rival, sold for $85,000 on May 9, and it spent late spring and summer swapping first place with the Pikachu at number one. Black Label means a perfect score on every count, the rarest grade Beckett gives. It is $868.94 today, within a few dollars of that February price.
#1 Pikachu ex 276/217 (Special Illustration Rare)
Illustrated by booota
The late bloomer.
booota's Pikachu is not doing anything. It is standing on a grassy bank at the foot of a tree in a sunlit forest, one paw on the trunk, one ear bent sideways, looking out at you wide-eyed, as if you have caught it at a bad moment. Sunbeams fall through the canopy and the leaves in the foreground are blurred, like you are peering at it through a bush. Look up into the branches and there are more Pikachu, faded into the light: one sprawled along a branch at the top left, another napping behind the name bar. Collectors have taken to calling it "Treekachu". It is booota's first English card.
In Japan, it was a secret card hidden in just one of a hundred possible pre-built decks, and it was already expensive there. In English it launched as the fourth most valuable card in the set, around $526 in the first week of February. Then it took off. By late April it was past $1,100, it peaked at about $1,400 in May, and it is $950.86 now. It is up about 80 percent on launch, the only card near the top of this set worth well over what it started at. Rare in Japan, new to the big painted treatment, and the most likeable Pikachu in years: any one of those would do it.
Is it worth grading Ascended Heroes cards?
The gold cards turn this table upside down.
| Card | Raw | PSA 10 | Profit | PSA 10 pop | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pikachu ex 276 | $950.86 | $1,961.89 | $852.04 | 7,657 | Gamble |
| Mega Gengar ex 284 | $868.94 | $1,845.25 | $817.32 | 9,259 | Gamble |
| Mega Dragonite ex 290 | $548.64 | $1,083.67 | $450.05 | 6,265 | Gamble |
| Mega Charizard Y ex 294 | $340.00 | $1,873.66 | $1,374.67 | 1,425 | Gamble |
| Pikachu ex 277 | $311.40 | $805.05 | $423.67 | 4,442 | Gamble |
| Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex 281 | $277.58 | $647.68 | $300.12 | 5,726 | Gamble |
| Mega Dragonite ex 295 | $217.33 | $1,128.10 | $825.79 | 749 | Gamble |
| N's Zoroark ex 286 | $146.20 | $268.68 | $92.50 | 3,287 | Gamble |
| Lillie's Clefairy ex 280 | $142.73 | $303.69 | $130.98 | 3,782 | Gamble |
| Mega Feraligatr ex 274 | $112.61 | $221.18 | $78.59 | 2,396 | Gamble |
PSA 10 is our market estimate from recent graded sales. Profit is what is left after buying the card raw and paying the grading fee and shipping. PSA 10 pop is how many copies PSA has graded a 10 so far: copies graded, not sold, and the supply a new slab would join. Safe bet means a PSA 9 still turns a profit; Gamble means only a 10 does.
The painted cards grade well. Every Special Illustration Rare on this list comes back a PSA 10 somewhere between 55 and 67 percent of the time, so there are plenty of 10s around, and they fetch only a small bump over a raw copy.
The gold cards are the opposite. The Mega Charizard Y comes back a 10 only about one time in five, and the gold Dragonite slightly less often. That scarcity shows up in the price: a PSA 10 gold Charizard Y sells for about five and a half times a raw copy, and a PSA 10 gold Dragonite for about five times. A raw gold Charizard is worth about a third of a raw Treekachu, but in a PSA 10 slab the two are almost level.
The flip side is the other four times in five. For almost every card here, a PSA 9 sells for no more than a raw copy, so anything short of a 10 just means you paid to find out. That makes the gold cards this set's all-or-nothing grades.
Before one goes in the post, Slab Advisor can give you a fair idea which side of that line it falls on: photograph the card and you get a grade estimate, with its PSA 10 and PSA 9 prices beside it.
Just outside the ten
The Mega Meganium, Steven's Metagross and Mega Froslass Special Illustration Rares all sit between $70 and $80. The Mega Froslass is by Teeziro, who drew the alley-cat Umbreon V in our Evolving Skies chase cards countdown. Illustration Rares are the cheaper painted cards a step below the Special ones, and the priciest here is a Psyduck at around $55.
Completing all 295 is a long job. The Ascended Heroes card list does the bookkeeping for you, with a price on every card.
Two hundred and ninety-five cards, a gold Charizard, a whole family of Dragonite, and the card at the top is the Pikachu that did not seem to want its picture taken.